No Dig Bed Materials

No-Dig Beds, Lasagna Beds, Compost Beds.... whatever you call it, this
method is excellent for creating a quick, thick garden bed of humus-laden,
water retaining, nutrient-rich, organic soil for your vegetables. Use this
method to amend current beds (and destroy the weeds that are taking them
over), fill new garden boxes, or experiment with inviting rainwater into
your landscape. The steps are easy enough, and there is a plethora of
resources, including this great 2 page article compiled by Bob Jones.
Basically, rather than trying to amend the dirt you already have on your
property and adjusting for all the deficiencies abundantly inherent in our
high plains desert (which takes years), you are starting with a bed made up
only of the good stuff. You make this "good stuff" soil by composting it
right where you want your bed to be out of materials from the
neighborhood. However, since you're eating out of this compost pile, you
want to be selective about the materials you put in.
Example: Absolutely no Manure.... not fresh manure (whether it's cow,
chicken, or horse... no!) or "aged" manure. It's fine to put manure in your
well-managed, 2-year rotation hot compost pile, but not in your 4 weeks to
planting pile. Instead, use finished compost! Finished dairy compost (even
organic) and finished sheep compost are both locally available (find them
on our gardener resource map) at local landscape supply yards. Also try
finished YOUR OWN compost, or see if a neighbor wants to share!
Finished compost actually has more available, not to mention
environmentally friendlier, nitrogen than manure, meaning you don't need
as much, so why risk the manure thing? And manure, but not necessarily
compost, is high in salts. Boooo. Might as well plant directly in the ground.
Example: Try to reduce introducing weed seeds. Use weed-seed free
straw, not hay. Use finished compost (manure also will have weed seeds
that finished compost will not). Judge for yourself if your yard waste from
last year should be hot composted to kill weed seeds and plant disease.
Example: Avoid pesticide and herbicide-laden plant material. Ask your
tree company if whatever they are injecting could potentially remain in the
leaves... cause there is likely an option that won't. Don't use herbicides.
Period. (actually, corn gluten is kind of cool...) Listen to what your
landscape is telling you. If you're growing weeds, there is something else
going on.... but I digress. Compost piles can effectively and quickly break
down many agri-pharm products, but not this compost pile. So don't add
'em.
Example: The cardboard layer IS the weedmat layer. It really works.
Seriously. Beneficially. Don't put down weedmat too.
So as you can see, this no dig garden bed is a compost pile, but not just any
compost pile. We reccommend you ALSO build a regular compost pile.
Check out the following to find out what you can add to your No-Dig Bed....
Optional Materials for Your No-Dig Bed
BROWN (CARBON)
C:N
RATIO
GREEN (NITROGEN)
C:N
RATIO
Cardboard 500:1 Grass Clippings 15:1
Newspaper 55:1 Finished Compost 10:1
Telephone Books 775:1 Coffee Grounds 15:1
Office Paper 130:1 Vegetable Waste 10:1
Leaves (Dried) 45:1 Fresh Oak Leaves 25:1
Leaves (Fresh) 35:1 Hay 20:1
Pine Needles 75:1
Straw 55:1
Sawdust 440:1
Wood chips 550:1
The C:N Ratio, Kind Of Explained
The C:N Ratio is the amount of Carbon (brown) to Nitrogen (green) a
material contains, based on dry weight. You may notice in the chart above
that all materials contain more Carbon than Nitrogen. Welcome to Earth.
Scientists agree that the ideal Carbon to Nitrogen ratio is around 30:1.
More Carbon than this (say, 45:1) and all the Nitrogen is caught up
breaking down your Carbon and isn't available to your plants. This is a
brown material. Less Carbon than this (say, 15:1) and the pile becomes
stinky with escaping Ammonia (NH3) and anaerobic bacteria because it
doesn't have enough Carbon and Oxygen to invite and support the happy,
plant-friendly nitrifying bacteria that convert the stinky, water and air -
polluting Ammonia(NH3) into Nitrates(NO3) that stay in place for plants
to eat up. This is a green material. This Nitrogen Cycle is super cool and
you can read a good explanation of it here .
With either too much Carbon or too much Nitrogen, other plant
nutrients won't be available either, so starting off with a good 30:1 ratio is
innumerably important. However, this is easier said than done. There are
all kinds of reasons why an exact calculation of your no-dig bed's C:N ratio
is realistically impossible. First off, the math (although logical) is pretty
hard for most of us. If you're a stickler for numbers, I would stop reading
this article and go to the Cornell website for a sweet equation. If you really
don't feel like opening up to the world of numbers at all today, I
recommend going to the Compost Calculators at either the Klickitat County
Website or at Florida's Virtual Pile. In both cases I caution that any 1
material's C:N ratio is highly variable based on it's pre-death life, so it's a
good idea to get used to accepting "guesstimates" in your equations. This
isn't rocket science or agri-business. For math you can figure in your head
as you build your bed, read on....
How to Calculate the Amount of Materials you Require
There are two ways I guesstimate to reach the amount of materials I
require for building a bed. That way I can cross check myself and hopefully
convince myself I am not completely messing up. The first method uses the
C:N ratio. (Remember, the C:N ratio applies to the dry weight, not the
mass or space the material takes up... yards or ft are measurements of
mass, not weight). All over the Internet you can find C:N ratios for any
material you might be thinking of adding (except for your high school math
teacher....). You have to start out with an agreed on weight, any weight you
can lift, to be considered 1 "part". When you add together the C:N ratios of
all the "parts" of the materials you are adding and divide by the total
number of "parts" you are adding, you want that number to be as close to
30 as is possible without driving you crazy. For instance............
[(X number of parts x C:N of material A) + (Y number of parts x
C:N of material B)] (X + Y) = 30
Example 1) You want to use dried leaves and coffee grounds to build your
bed. You're comfortable lifting 10 pounds at a time (and biking it back from
the coffee shop). So 10 pounds equals 1 "part". Dried leaves have a C:N of
45:1 and coffee grounds have a C:N of 15:1.
[(1 part x 15/1) + (1 part x 45/1)] (1+1) = 30
[(15) + (45)] 2 = 30
60 2 = 30
30 = 30
So 1 part dried leaves plus 1 part coffee grounds equals a C:N of 30:1
This means you need 10 pounds of coffee grounds to balance 10 pounds of
dried leaves
Example 2) How does this equation work when you don't know how much
you need? Lets say you have 10 pounds of finished compost (C:N of 10:1...
check the table at the beginning of this article for more C:N's of note) from
your neighbors. How many pounds of leaves do you need to rake up to
finish you bed? 10 pounds will again equal 1 part. But if your neighbor only
gave you 5 pounds, 5 pounds would equal 1 part.
[(1 part of compost x 10) + (X parts of leaves x 45)] (1 + X) = 30
[(10) + (45X)] (1 + X) x (1 + X) = 30 x (1 + X)
- 10 + 10 + 45X = 30 + 30X - 10
45X - 30X = 20 + 30X - 30X
(15 X) 15 = 20 15
X parts of leaves = 1.3 parts x 10 pounds per part = 13 pounds of
leaves
So 10 pounds of of compost require 13 pounds of leaves to build your bed.
Example #3) What if you want to use more than 2 ingredients in you bed?
You can add to this equation indefinitely. You may want to mix it up abit...
say you already have 50 pounds of dry leaves (say around 5 trash bags of
'em) and 10 pounds of coffee grounds you can pick up. You want to figure
out how much finished compost you have to buy to make a good bed. First
determine your common weight that defines a "part". You have 50 pounds
of 1 thing and 10 pounds of another. Since 10 divides easily in to 50, lets
make 10 pounds our common weight. So you already have 5 parts of leaves
(50 lbs 10 lbs = 5) and 1 part of Coffee (10 lbs 10 lbs = 1)
Leaves have a C:N of 45:1, Coffee has a C:N of 15:1, and finished compost
has a C:N of 10:1
[(5 parts x 45) + (1 part x 15) + (X parts x 10)] (5 parts + 1 part+ X
parts) = 30
(225 + 15+10X) (6 + X) = 30
(6 + X) x [(240 + 10X) (6 + X)] = 30 x (6 + X)
240 + 10X = 30 x 6 + 30 x X
240 + 10X = 180 + 30X
240 + 10X - 10X = 180 + 30X - 10X
240 - 180 = 180 + 20X - 180
(60) 20 = (20X) 20
3 parts = X parts
So you still need to add 30 pounds (3 parts x 10 pounds each part = 30
pounds) of compost to get your bed going.
From this example we can derive that 50 pounds of leaves, 10 pounds of
coffee grounds, and 30 pounds of compost would make a balanced bed. But
how big of a bed can I make from those ingredients? That is dependant on
your materials. 1 yard of materials is equal to 3' long x 3' wide x 3' deep (27
ft) of material... or 9' long x 3' wide by 1' deep (also 27 ft) of material, or
my favorite... 4.5' long x 3' long x 2' deep (also 27 ft, or 1 yard of material)
But how many pounds of dried leaves can you cram into a yard?
Apparently the variable poundage of 100 - 300 pounds. Also, although the
C:N of a material is indicative of the available nitrogen, it is not really exact
due to the amount of oxygen the material is able to access. So don't get
caught up in the numbers..... Thus, enter my second method of
guesstimation...
The second method uses the highly unscientific ratio of 3-5 masses of
brown (depending on how compacted) to 1 mass of green. By mass, I mean
the visual bulk of the material. Like 3-5 yards of leaves (light and fluffy) to
1 yard of composted dairy manure (pretty dense). Since the C:N ratio is
based on dry weight (the weight of the material if you spun it really fast
and warmed it until all the water was gone) you either have to sample each
material you use for moisture content and then subtract that moisture
content percentage from the weight of the material you can jam into a 3' x
3' x 3' box (which you measured on the truck scale you keep handy) to
figure out exactly how much of the material's weight per yard is applicable
to the C:N ratio which is then messed up because it rains next Thursday, ...
or you can wing it using the first rough calculation and this rough visual
method. Since most greens have more moisture in them ('cause they were
more recently alive, or in the case of compost, are still alive) they will be
heavier and more compacted than long-gone browns. And for the materials
we use in no-dig beds, we have found that visually this looks like 5 masses
brown to 1 mass green.
In our "Example #3" above, we found out an example of a balanced bed
has 50 pounds of dried leaves, 10 pounds of coffee grounds, and 30 pounds
of compost. This sounds like alot of compost until you see it visually.
Remember we said 50 pounds of leaves looked like 5 big trash bags (or 1
trash bag can be about 10 pounds). Well, 10 pounds of coffee grounds looks
like a bucket that is maybe 1/4 the size of 1 of those bags of leaves. (All of
these maybes and abouts are due to that moisture content thing... wetter
ingredients weigh more. So try to compare ingredients that have equal
moisture levels... your coffee grounds may have to sit out for a day to feel as
wet as the leaves you bagged last fall.... or just wing it) 10 pounds of
compost may also look like 1/4 of 1 of those trash bags. Thus, 10 pounds of
coffee grounds and 30 pounds of finished compost (our greens) look like
1/5 of the amount of 50 pounds of leaves.
10 lbs
leaves
+
10 lbs
leaves
+
10 lbs
leaves
+
10 lbs
leaves
+
10 lbs
leaves
+
10 lbs
coffee
grounds
+ 30 lbs
compost
If you can't estimate it, guesstimate it! For some scientific verification,
check out the Cornell On-Farm Composting Handbook where some of their
guesstimated weights per yard are on display. 1 yard (27 ft) of dried leaves
(C:N of approx. 45:1) weighs anywhere from 100 to 300 pounds per yard. 1
yard of "compacted" grass clippings (left sitting in the bag from last
year???) (C:N of 17:1) weighs anywhere from 500 - 800 pounds per yard.
thus, it is feasible that 5 yards (or bags, or whatever) of dried leaves need
1-ish yards (or bags, or buckets) of compacted grass clippings to balance out
the bed. Furthermore, if you had 100 pounds (1 part and in this case only, 1
yard) of dry leaves with a C:N of 45:1, you would need approximately 100
pounds (1 part and in this case 1/5 of a yard) of compacted grass clippings
to balance your bed.
Materials for No - Dig Beds and Workshops
So for No-Dig workshops, Home Grown Food is committed to making sure
you have access to all the materials you need. Check out our HGF Garden
Resource Map for a listing of local landscape supply businesses and low -
no cost garden building supply locations, as well as our HGF Gardener Map
for a listing of gardeners near you (who may either be interested in sharing
supplies and/or attending your workshop!) Also consider utilizing some of
the great community-mobilized Internet programs for gleaning no-dig bed
materials. You can post for free for materials requests such as sawdust or
spent straw on Craig's List , post for leaves on the Leaf Exchange graciously
set up by the city, or ask questions and trade plants on the Plant Exchange
Yahoo Group (thanks Totalbeard!) or the Garden Traders Yahoo Group ,
and of course the Home Grown Food Google Group .
If you need some help with obtaining materials, please let us know! Your
facilitator will be able to make sure you have the materials you need! The
sooner we know, the sooner we can figure it out.
Here are some basic recipes for a 200 ft bed. Only have half that space?
Halve all ingredients? Want to build it 3' deep instead of 2' deep? Make it
shorter or increase you ingredients by half! Not sure? Ask your facilitator!
We stay up late on Saturday nights thinking about this stuff.
Example Recipe # 1
Bed size: 10' long by 10' wide by 2' deep
= 200 ft/27 ft = 7.4 yds of material
Material
Material
Sub-
Category
Special
Instructions
C:N
Yards of
Material
Potential
dimensions/
weight
Cardboard corrugated
tape
removed
400:1 2/5 or .4 yds 10' x 10' x 2"
Leaves Dry
Dry and
Fluffy
45:1 5.25 yds 525 lbs
Dairy or
Sheep
Compost
Finished
Not
Manure!
Should look
10:1 1.75 yds ??
and smell
like dirt.
Worm
Compost
(Click on the
link and
look for the
worm icon
to find
where to get
it!)
Just 1 gallon
or so... to
seed your
bed with
worms and
beneficials
N/A
Water
Lots of it to
start. It is
neccessary
to adhesive
the layers
together in
unified
break-down
potential
N/A
LOTS (your
hose will be
running for
1/2 the
workshop)
Example recipe #2
Bed size: 10' long by 10' wide by 2' deep
= 200 ft/27 ft = 7.4 yds of material
Material
Material
Sub-
Category
Special
Instructions
C:N
Yards of
Material
Potential
dimensions/
weight
Newspaper
No shiny
portions
55:1 1.4 yds
10' x 10' x 5"
/ 200 lbs
per yd
Leaves Dry Loose 35:1 3.25 yds 325 lbs
Straw
Weed seed
free does
not mean
seed free...
55:1 1 yd 3 - ish bales
Home
Compost
i.e. coffee
grounds,
veggie
scraps
doesn't have
to be
finished, as
long as
there is no
meat or
dairy
15:1 1.75 yds
??? 1 yd = 3'
x 3' x 3'
Worm
Compost
Just 1 gallon
or so... to
seed your
bed with
worms and
beneficials
N/A
Water
The Magic
Ingredient...
to start. The
bed is very
water-
retention
friendly
once it gets
going
Lots
Not sure it will work? Check it out of the Compost Calculator!
If you get a number between 20:1 to 35:1 you're probably okay. This
calculator was developed where moisture is plentiful, so their "Available"
Carbon and Nitrogen calculations are bound to be different from ours... It's
better to err on the side of Nitrogen Deficiency (so a number above 30:1
rather than below is preferred). It is easier to add more nitrogen to
kickstart a failing no-dig bed (in the form of worm compost tea, blood meal,
or kelp fertilizer) than to re-mix in leaves and straw for additional carbon.
Bed Maintenance
Expect to continue to add to this bed every year. Some stuff will break
down, plants will eat up the nutrients (horaay), and treated city water will
slowly raise the pH and add salts to your bed. New stuff can be added to
keep the 30:1 ratio goal alive (as well as the beneficials) and keep the bed
oxygen rich. Some weeding will be necessary. But you will be amazed at
how easy it is to pull 'em.
-composed by Lauren Dittmann of Northern Colorado Gardenscapes.
First weekend of spring, 2009
Let us know what you think of this article. Additions? 3 pages of
subtractions? We appreciate your input! Contact us at
contact@homegrownfoodcolorado.org
Spaces still available to host or participate in an upcoming workshop!